


alive

by moonythejedi394



Series: tiny Hobbits [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Bilbo Baggins Returns to Erebor, Bilbo is a dumb, M/M, Pippin cries a lot bc he's tiny, Thorin is more of a dumb, Tiny Hobbits, frodo sam merry and pippin are all v young, i'm sorry but i had to be mean to the hobbits it was for the plot, now i rlly want a tiny hobbit of my own dammit, pippin is a koala he hugs people and then does not let go, while this is an everyone lives thing actually some hobbits die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 00:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11566278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonythejedi394/pseuds/moonythejedi394
Summary: “You have a tiny Hobbit,” Fíli said, sounding astonished. “Why do you have a tiny Hobbit?” Kíli asked, his voice suspicious. “Did you get married?” asked Fíli, now sounding worried. “This is not good,” Kíli muttered, with twice the worry as Fíli. “Uncle, why are they staring at you?” Frodo asked, his voice confused.Bilbo fled Erebor before his friends could be buried, before he had to see Thorin encased in stone. He returns to the Shire and settles into a life of unsociability and some amount of loneliness, but finds comfort in the figures of the children of Hobbiton.After twenty years, however, his luck is gone, and Bilbo has to flee the Shire with Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, and with four very young Hobbits, there is only one place he can turn to.





	alive

**Author's Note:**

> _i'm fond of saying that i have no project management skills, and it's v true, i start things randomly simply bc i had the idea. i'm also fond of the bilbo runs away without realizing that thorin's still alive and has to return at some point with baby hobbits trope, and decided i needed to get in on the fun._

* * *

 

**_alive_ **

 

 

It was late, very late, much too late for proper goodbyes and perfect for sneaking away. It was a moonless night, and with nothing but stars to light his path, Bilbo left Erebor.

 

He had said goodbyes, make no mistake, but they had all been one at a time. They had been in hushed tones, where no one else could hear. His friends had all hugged him tightly and many of them cried, and just as many begged him to stay long enough for them to have a proper goodbye feast. Bilbo made no promises to them, only smiled a tight and sad smile, and slipped away quietly in the end.

 

It was almost in a daze that Bilbo walked. He did not find himself growing tired, not even when the sun broke the eastern sky and long tendrils of orange began to turn the deep blue of the night lavender, not even when he reached the edge of the forest and set his feet upon the path through Mirkwood, not even when he found himself accosted once again by the spiders and fought them off. No, he found no weariness in his bones for a full two days, and by then he had cleared the forest and was standing in the sunlight again.

 

Bilbo finally let himself collapse. Hidden in the tall grass, he curled up under his cloak and cried.

 

_“Bil –… Bilbo…”_

_“It’s alright, you’re going to be fine, just fine.”_

_“Bilbo, I –”_

_“Shh, save your breath, Thorin.”_

_“No, no, I have not much of it left. I have to say, have to tell you…”_

_“It’s alright, Thorin.”_

_“No, it’s not. I – I am sorry.”_

_“I know. I know.”_

_“I cannot ever hope that you would forgive me, but I – I would want to part with you… As friends, even if I cannot have your heart, I would ask your forgiveness.”_

_“Thorin, you are not going to die.”_

_“Please, Bilbo… Kurdulu…”_

_“You are not going to die, you’re going to live, you’re going to be fine, I can’t – I can’t lose you, Thorin!”_

_“I am so, so sorry, Bilbo…”_

_“Thorin, please.”_

_“Will you forgive me?”_

_“I – I forgive you.”_

_“Thank you. I can – can pass in peace, now.”_

_“No, no, you are not allowed to! Thorin! Thorin, look at me!”_

_“I’ve always… Always loved your eyes…”_

_“Thorin, don’t, stay with me, alright, you’re going to be fine.”_

_“Always loved you, Bilbo…"_

_“I love you, too, Thorin. Thorin, no, no, don’t die, don’t die, the Eagles are coming, Thorin, please, look, look at me! The Eagles…”_

 

Bilbo cried himself to sleep.

 

He stayed with Beorn for quite some time. The Shapeshifter gave him food and a pony for the road, and Bilbo set off again before Gandalf could find him. He did not want to linger in any one place too long, after all. He found the Troll cave, and, having a sudden feeling that he might need it, he took a small chest of gold, and made his way back to the borders of the Shire.

 

He found his home being auctioned off. “We thought you were dead!” exclaimed the hobbit in charge. “You’ve been gone for thirteen months!”

 

“Well, I am not dead, thank you very much, and this is my home!” Bilbo snapped at him.

 

“Well, are you sure?” the Hobbit asked. Bilbo groaned aloud and the Hobbit went on: “Do you have any proof of your identity? Just a piece of paper with your signature on it would do.”

 

Bilbo clenched his jaw, then snatched from the pockets of his coat the contract. “Here!” he said, thrusting it at the hobbit. “One contract with my signature!”

 

“Well, this appears to be in order,” the Hobbit said, adjusting his glasses. Bilbo made a noise of irritation and muttered some not too kind words under his breath as he stormed up his front steps, reaching his front door as the hobbit spoke again: “But who’s this Thorin Oakenshield you pledged your service to?”

 

Bilbo stopped, his hand on the door. “Thorin –…” his voice choked. He cleared his throat and looked to the door, blinking rapidly and hoping to the Valar that they wouldn’t see his tears. “He was my friend,” he said finally, and pushed inside.

 

The smial had been emptied out. Barely a few papers and a thick layer of dust remained. Bilbo stood there for a moment, then exhaled heavily and took off his pack. He could hire the young Hobbits that had been employed to empty his home to fill it back up again, he guessed. He could already hear the auctioneer demanding the return of everything that had been sold with the promise of recompensation, so that much was good. Bilbo simply stood there for a moment.

 

“He was my friend,” he repeated in a whisper.

 

Bilbo had been, thirteen months previous, a perfectly respectable Hobbit, if not a little bit queer, but as time went by after his return, he soon descended into utter unsociability, and he found that he rather liked it. He spent his days not having to ferry invitations to tea parties and dinners and nonsense, but in his study or in his garden. He began gardening a lot more than he had done in his youth, finding peace in the herbs, the rose bushes, the carnations, and despite his unsociability, he turned out several prize winning tomatoes over the years.

 

Another benefit to being unsociable, Bilbo found, was that he did not have to deal with young hobbit lasses trying to court him anymore. Bessie Thatcher had approached him one afternoon before his unsociability proved itself, and he had quite frankly run away, leaving her standing in the market, quite confused. He realized that while it had been an annoyance in his earlier days, he could no longer keep up pretenses. He settled into bachelorhood and did not mind the tongues that wagged and the eyes that narrowed.

 

When he was not in his garden or in his study or running errands, Bilbo found himself appreciating the company of his closer family. His second cousin Primula, with whom he had been very close as a faunt, visited his smial every so often, always with a basket of fresh-baked orange and walnut muffins on her arm. They would sit in silence and drink their tea and eat their muffins, and sometimes Bilbo would tell her stories. It got easier, he found, the longer he talked to her, to just say things, but it took five years for him to admit that he would never marry. Prim just reached out and took his hand.

 

“It was him, wasn’t it?” she asked quietly. “The dwarf king.”

 

Bilbo nodded, then exhaled and nodded again. “You can’t know how relieved I am to just tell someone,” he said, and then he was crying, and Prim was hugging him, whispering to him that he was going to be alright.

 

When Prim married his first cousin, Drogo, Bilbo went to their wedding, despite it being the first event he’d gone to that wasn’t for his tomatoes in ten years. He got drunk, he danced on a table, and when an equally drunk young lass started towards him, Bilbo slipped behind a tent and put on his Ring before walking out quite content with himself and his skill at avoiding people.

 

Prim had her first child within the year. Frodo they named him, a good strong, Hobbitish name, Bilbo thought. He gave the fauntling a toy pony, made of cotton and stuffed with feathers, at his first nameday party, and the little faunt never let go of it. He doted on Frodo, always bringing gifts and telling him stories, and soon, Bilbo was no longer utterly unsociable, but everyone’s favorite child-minder, for he was always free and no one had to worry about his own children or spouse, and Bilbo found that he did not mind in the slightest. The children flocked to him at parties, and because they were all still faunts, their parents did not turn their nose up when he told them stories of trolls and dragons and elves. Never dwarf kings, however. His throat always seemed to close up on him when he tried to tell them about the dwarf king.

 

Prim and Drogo left Frodo with him for a weekend so they could go off and celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. They never came back.

 

Bilbo took Frodo as his own, and though he was still queer and eccentric and a little unsociable, the Hobbits of Hobbiton had seemed to accept this a long time ago, and now that he had young Frodo to care for, Hobbiton seemed to no longer care that Bilbo was odd, for Frodo’s sake.

 

When Frodo was fifteen, still just a fauntling really, the mutterings started up again, and this time, they were not about Bilbo.

 

It had been a hard winter, not quite as bad as the Fell Winter, but the ground took very long to thaw and thus there was a shortage of food. The Thain, Paladin Took, had not distributed what food they had very well. Belts were tightened and rations were put into place. The mutterings became more and more angry, and Bilbo stopped letting Frodo play outside past dinner. As the summer neared, a drought fell upon the land, leaving tongues dry and crops unwatered. The mutterings became louder and louder, and Bilbo found he did not like the direction they were going.

 

It was a very hot summer’s evening when the mutterings became shouting, and just as quickly, the shouting became a mob. Hobbits, while generally peaceful, are quick to vindicate, Bilbo had found. Hobbits, while generally quick to vindicate, are not usually so quick to lash out.

 

The mob raged and the market was destroyed. The communal barns were ransacked and a few set afire. No one was hurt, they thought the next morning, until someone realized that there was a child still wailing within the house of the Thain.

 

Bilbo had been there. He had run inside, hearing the voice of young Pippin, and had never in his years expected to see what he did. Pippin was standing there, his mouth stretched wide in a scream, and his parents were lying in a pool of blood. Bilbo grabbed Pippin around the middle and carried him out as quickly as he could, but little Pippin never ceased his crying.

 

The Thain and his wife were not the only ones. In the cover of the mob, several homes had been broken into and ransacked, many of their inhabitants attacked, some killed. Bilbo left Pippin and Frodo with his neighbor Hamfast, and went with the others to find more. While many had been hurt, fortunately only a few had been killed, but only one other home left a child orphaned. Bilbo took Merry Brandybuck without a word, and no one stopped him, so he brought the little faunt back to Bag End. He went to collect Pippin and Frodo, hoping that Hamfast’s young boy Sam and his own nephew had managed to distract Pippin from his parent’s murders, but he had no such luck.

 

Hamfast’s door had been ripped off the hinges. Bilbo grabbed a shovel off the ground and darted inside, then gagged and nearly dropped the shovel. Hamfast was dead, and so was his wife. He heard no other noise within the smial, but searched anyway, praying that the faunts had managed to hide –

 

They were tucked in an old chest of papers in the attic; Frodo and Pippin with little Sam, buried under old letters and journals. Bilbo cast aside his shovel and pulled them out.

 

“They were looking for me!” Pippin cried. “I saw them! I saw them last night, and they were looking for me!”

 

Biblo tucked them all under his cloak so they wouldn’t see the bodies and hurried them out, back up to Bag End where Merry was tucked in a bed. Bilbo woke him and told Frodo to start packing clothes, while he left one last note; _I have Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo. Pippin saw them. I am taking them away so they won’t get hurt. I don’t think we will ever come back_. His nephew obeyed immediately, and within an hour, Bilbo had Merry and Pippin, who were still too young to walk on their own, all on Hamfast’s pony, Bill, with the bags packed hastily with a little food and clothes, Frodo and Sam close to his sides, and they snuck away under the cover of night.

 

Only once did Bilbo turn back to look. Several of the barns were still burning, the fire had spread beyond them, catching the dry wood which had gone up easily. Bilbo turned away again.

 

“Where are we going, Uncle?” Frodo asked him in a very small voice.

 

“Rivendell,” Bilbo said.

 

“To the elves?” Sam asked, his voice a little higher now. Bilbo nodded.

 

“They can tell us what to do,” he said to them. “They can shelter us.”

 

Merry and Pippin fell asleep on the pony before long, and Bilbo had to hoist Frodo onto it when his head began to loll, then carried Sam on his back when he too began to slow. He did not dare stop until they had left the Shire, until they reached Bree. Bilbo rented a room at the Prancing Pony, giving his name as Underhill and saying that the young ones with him were all his sons, and he let the boys sleep until they woke on their own.

 

Bilbo sat on the balcony, puffing on a pipe he’d bought in town, wondering what he really ought to do. They could stop in Rivendell, yes, but the House of Elrond was no good for young faunts. He knew full well that there had been no young elves in a very long time, and his little ones needed the company of other children. They could not stay in Bree long either, Bilbo thought it too close to the Shire and the anger seething still in Hobbiton.

 

He really could only think of one place safe for them.

 

And he did not want to go back there.

 

They left the next morning after Bilbo stocked up on food, and bought another pony. This time he had Frodo and Merry on one and Sam and Pippin on the other, each pony with a bag and he himself carrying his old pack. They walked until nightfall, before stopping to make camp. None of the fauntlings were complaining much about food, but Bilbo managed to get them to eat anyway. The shock of the past two days had yet to catch up to them, Bilbo thought. Merry hadn’t even cried yet.

 

They traveled for almost a week before reaching the valley. Bilbo led the ponies down into them with their silent faunts on their backs, and found no music, no taunting song awaiting them as the elves had greeted them when Bilbo had arrived with the dwarves twenty years ago. As they neared the little stone circle where the elves had met the dwarves then, Bilbo was met now by Lord Elrond and Lindir alone.

 

“Well met, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire,” Lord Elrond said, greeting him as the elves did, bowing of the head and a hand touched to the breast, “and welcome.”

 

“I wish it were under better circumstances, Lord Elrond,” Bilbo said, then cleared his throat. “Have you heard news of the Shire?”

 

Elrond raised an eyebrow. “Clearly not enough,” he said. “Come, I am sure your children are tired and hungry and in need of a warm bath.”

 

“Oh, yes, please!” Frodo sighed.

 

Elrond inclined his head and the two elves showed them in. They were given a room with a view of the river, with four beds and a bath attached. Bilbo wasted no time in forcing the fauntlings to strip and bathe, then they made their way to dinner. When the faunts had eaten and Bilbo sent them back to bed, he met Elrond again in the same chamber where they had eaten dinner.

 

“What news have you heard?” Bilbo asked.

 

“Revolts,” Elrond said. “A hard winter, a drought, fire. Nothing more.”

 

“There were revolts, yes,” Bilbo sighed, “and there were deaths.”

 

Elrond raised an eyebrow. “This is why you come with children, yes?”

 

Bilbo nodded. “They are not my children, I am at best a cousin to Pippin and Merry, though I am already Frodo’s guardian. Sam… Sam is the son of my neighbor. I should start at the beginning.”

 

Elrond nodded and listened patiently while Bilbo explained. He left out the finer details of how precisely the Tooks, the Brandybucks, and even the Gamgees had been killed, but he figured Elrond got the message.

 

“Pippin saw his parents' killers,” Bilbo said at last. “I couldn’t stay there, I couldn’t risk it happening again. It’s a miracle that they managed to hide from them when they attacked the Gamgees.”

 

“I understand,” Elrond said patiently.

 

There was silence for a moment. Bilbo longed for a pipe, but didn’t risk it, knowing that the elves were not as fond of pipe smoke as other races. Then:

 

“Where will you go from here?” Elrond asked in a hushed voice.

 

Bilbo deflated. “I had thought…”

 

“Imladris is a haven, yes, but it is not a place for children to flourish in happiness,” Elrond said. “You know this.”

 

“I know,” Bilbo sighed. “I just… We’ll stay here a few days, let them adjust, then…”

 

“You know where your destination lies,” Elrond murmured.

 

Bilbo looked away, then nodded. “I had thought I’d never see it again.”

 

“And why is that?”

 

“Too many bad memories,” Bilbo choked, and realized that his eyes were watering. He rubbed at them and Elrond set a hand at his shoulder.

 

“Perhaps you will find the Lonely Mountain a little less cold to you than you thought,” Elrond said in a murmur.

 

Bilbo only exhaled and nodded.

 

He returned to the room they had been given and went to bed, only to be woken what seemed like minutes later by sniffing and the sound of tears. He rose halfway in his bed, then saw Merry’s bed empty. He pushed away his blankets and rose, taking a few short steps, then spotted the faunt sitting on the balcony.

 

“Hello,” he whispered to the boy. Merry glanced up at him, then rubbed at his nose and looked away. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arms. Merry stood up and took a few hesitant steps, then fairly fell forward into his arms, sobbing again. “I know, lad,” he murmured, “I know.”

 

He woke Pippin, Frodo, and Sam, and had all four of the fauntlings join him in his bed, where they all curled up in the warmth of each other’s arms and not a few tears were shed. Bilbo held onto them tightly, and promised he’d never see harm come to them again.

 

They prepared to leave again in a week, and when Frodo asked where they were going now, Bilbo managed to keep his voice level when he answered.

 

“To Erebor, my lad.”

 

That got them all smiling again. “To the dwarves you adventured with?” Merry demanded.

 

“To the place where the dragon was killed?” Pippin asked.

 

“To the home of your friends?” Frodo said.

 

“Yes,” Bilbo answered. “To Erebor. We will have to pass through mountains and Mirkwood, now, so you’ll all have to take great care of each other.”

 

“I would not send you alone,” came the voice of Lord Elrond. Bilbo turned and found the Elven Lord standing behind them with a man at his side. Not an elf, a man, with shaggy black hair and an almost respectable beard that reminded Bilbo firmly of Kíli’s stubble. He swallowed the memory and smiled politely.

 

“This is Aragorn, son of Arathorn,” Elrond said, “he is a Ranger of the North, and he will see you pass safely through Mirkwood.”

 

“Thank you, Lord Elrond,” Bilbo said, “I’m very grateful.”

 

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, inclined his head. “At your service, Master Baggins.”

 

“At – at yours and your family’s,” Bilbo said, almost taken aback by the rather Dwarvish greeting. Lord Elrond gave a nod, and with a pleased smile, he bowed his head to Bilbo.

 

“I hope I will see you again, my friend,” Elrond said. “But until then, farewell.”

 

“Farewell,” Bilbo said. Then he glanced pointedly at the faunts.

 

“Goodbye!” they all chanted, and Lord Elrond’s smile increased before he turned and left, leaving them with Aragorn.

 

“Your two ponies are waiting at the gates. I have a horse and another pony waiting there for us as well,” Aragorn said to Bilbo. “We will move faster if we ride.”

 

“Oh, yes, of course,” Bilbo said.

 

“Then let us be off,” Aragorn said with an incline of his head. Bilbo nodded back in answer.

 

Bilbo put the bags on the extra pony, then let Aragorn take Pippin, who was smallest, with him on his horse while he rode with Merry on Bill and Sam and Frodo rode on the pony he’d bought in Bree. They rode in quiet, but when Pippin started to sniff again, Bilbo slowed his pony and held out his arms to Aragorn. The man hesitated, then lifted the little hobbit off of his horse and handed him to Bilbo, who held him to his chest and let the faunt cry into his jacket. Merry leaned back against Bilbo and held Pippin’s hand, and together, the two of them cried.

 

“How old are they?” Aragorn asked quietly.

 

“Sam is the eldest,” Bilbo answered, just as hushed, “at seventeen. In Mannish ages, he would be about ten.”

 

Aragorn fell silent, then: “And the others?”

 

“Frodo is fifteen, Merry is twelve, and Pippin is nine.”

 

“They are but children.”

 

Bilbo nodded. Aragorn’s face was impassive, and for a long while, they said nothing. Frodo pulled on the reigns of his pony and brought it side-by-side with Bill, then reach out and took his uncle’s hand. Bilbo squeezed it.

 

“We can make camp soon,” Aragorn said. Bilbo glanced up at the sky, seeing twilight was nearly over. “I can take the first watch if you would rather take second.”

 

Bilbo half smiled, thinking of dwarves who likened second watch to be a synonym for irritable. But then, there were two of them, whereas with the dwarves there would be three watches.

 

“I’ll take second,” Bilbo said finally. Aragorn nodded to him.

 

So they traveled. They reached the foothills of the Misty Mountains within another two weeks, and after a third, they had made their way safely across them. With Mirkwood ahead of them and the faunts weary of riding, Bilbo suggested they stop to see Beorn the Shapeshifter, and Aragorn agreed, though hesitantly.

 

When they saw the honeycombs, Bilbo dismounted Bill and pulled Merry from the pony. “I want you lot on your best behavior,” Bilbo said to the fauntlings, “speak when spoken to, and don’t touch things that aren’t yours.” He shot Pippin a look, who looked satisfactorily shamefaced. Bilbo took Pippin’s hand in one and Merry’s in the other, then strode up to the front door. He released Merry’s hand to knock. After a moment, it opened.

 

“Bilbo Baggins,” rumbled Beorn, then the Shapeshifter’s thick eyebrows rose. “And tiny Bagginses?”

 

“Not precisely, no,” Bilbo said. “My…” he broke off, at a sudden loss for how to describe the fauntlings he had taken in and sworn to protect. Frodo was his charge, certainly, but Merry and Pippin were cousins, and Sam was the son of his neighbor. A neighbor Bilbo had gotten killed. “My nephews,” he said finally, brokenly almost.

 

Beorn raised his gaze to meet Aragorn’s. The man shifted uncomfortably.

 

“This is our companion, Aragorn, son of Arathorn,” Bilbo said. “He was sent with us by Lord Elrond to see us safely to Erebor.”

 

“You return to the mountain?” Beorn asked.

 

“I – Yes, I do.”

 

“Despite what you said to me all those years ago?”

 

Bilbo hesitated. He remembered. _“I shall never return. I can’t bear the thought of that mountain without him. Nothing can ever make me go back.”_

 

Then he swallowed the words. “I don’t have another choice, old friend.”

 

Beorn seemed to consider this, then he stepped back and waved a massive hand, inviting them in. “I sense a story, Master Bilbo,” Beorn said to them.

 

“You do, friend, but I fear it does not have very many happy points. If we may partake in a meal and see the little ones rest, I will tell it to you.”

 

Beorn raised a thick eyebrow again, but said nothing as Bilbo ushered the faunts inside with Aragorn at his heels. The Shapeshifter crossed the room and pulled from a jar on his table a handful of honeycakes, which he held out to the fauntlings. The four young Hobbits stared for a moment, then Pippin darted a hand out and took one, and just as quick it disappeared in his mouth. Beorn smiled, and Pippin grinned.

 

“‘Fank you, Master Beorn,” Pippin said thickly.

 

“You are most welcome, tiny Baggins,” Beorn said. Bilbo didn’t have the heart to correct him.

 

The fauntlings ate like starving children and then just as quickly collapsed onto the beds of straw Beorn prepared them and fell asleep in a pile of arms and legs. Sam was quick to start snoring, then Frodo gently smacked him in the face whilst half asleep until he rolled over and his breathing evened. Bilbo chuckled at them and lit his pipe.

 

“So, Master Bilbo,” Beorn said in his slow deep rumble, like honey dripping from wax, “what is this sad story you have to tell me?”

 

Bilbo told him. Of the life he’d led in solitude, happily being avoided by most and loved by children. Of his dear cousin Prim and her husband being lost to the river. Of the unease that had brewed for weeks, of the riot that broke out, the barns set on fire and the shouting and screaming. Of the quiet that had come the next morning, a quiet that had an underlying hum that was the wailing of a child faced with his murdered parents. Of finding Merry hidden in a cupboard and hiding his face from what remained of his home, of Hamfast and his wife lying in their kitchen with all the color outside of them instead of in. Beorn listened with a heavy brow and shoulders that only drooped further and further, until Bilbo finished the tale up to where they were just then, and the Shapeshifter touched his small knee with a finger.

 

“You are very brave, my friend,” Beorn said. “And very strong. I know few who would go from guardian of one to guarding four in only a day, and fewer who would be able to get all four to safety just as quickly.”

 

“Well,” Bilbo murmured, “we still have Mirkwood. And… And the mountain.”

 

Beorn nodded his head, and Aragorn glanced between them. The man clearly sensed what neither Bilbo nor Beorn would say, and he clearly was displeased at being left in the dark.

 

When Beorn spoke next, Bilbo had almost finished his pipe.

 

“Did you stay long enough for their funerals?”

 

It was a question Beorn had first asked Bilbo twenty years ago. It was a question Bilbo had been avoiding since then. Then again, he had been avoiding the subject of them for almost all of that twenty years, and now he was going to be returning to where they had died.

 

“No,” he said, very quietly.

 

Beorn tapped his knee with a finger. “Perhaps you will find closure now.”

 

“I have had closure,” Bilbo hissed, suddenly angry with his friend. “I have had peace and quiet for twenty years. I – I didn’t need _this_.”

 

Beorn only shrugged. “Death is not something one can avoid easily, Bilbo. Nor is it something one can forget.”

 

Bilbo hung his head. “I know.”

 

“These little Bagginses will need you. They are all far too young to know how to handle the loss of people so close to them. They will ask you how to cope, and they will need more than a bottle to fill with their thoughts.”

 

Bilbo squeezed his eyes shut, hating that he was tearful so suddenly. Then he rubbed at his eyes and leaned back in his chair and puffed on his pipe again, despite the redness of his nose and the ache in his chest.

 

“I will help them,” he said. “I will help them, but I will not uncork my bottle. It has been sealed up for far too long.”

 

Beorn’s face was full of sorrow, and he sighed as he stood up from the table and made his way to the door. “How long do you think you will stay?”

 

“A few days, as long as you’ll have us. They need the rest.”

 

“I will not have you go before you are ready.”

 

Bilbo nodded, and Beorn ducked out through the door. He could feel Aragorn’s eyes on him and did not want to face the questions the Ranger most clearly had for him. Fortunately, it would seem he did not have to.

 

A sudden whimpering noise caught Bilbo’s ear and he turned in his chair to face the pile of fauntlings curled up just outside of the candlelight. Bilbo half rose, then heard the whimper again. He set down his pipe, gave a nod to Aragorn, and crossed to the faunts’ sleeping pile. Pippin was curled up around Sam’s chest, a thumb in his mouth and his brow furrowed. He was the one whining, and when Bilbo touched a hand to his shoulder, the little faunt jerked and looked up immediately. His big eyes filled with tears and he held out his arms to Bilbo, who picked him up and cradled him for a moment, whispering shushing noises to him under his breath.

 

“I s–saw them,” Pippin cried into his coat, his muffled voice shaking. “They w–wouldn’t st–stop!”

 

“There was nothing you could do,” Bilbo whispered.

 

“I t–tried!”

 

“I know you did, my lad, I know you did.”

 

“I’m n–never gonna see Mummy a–and Daddy again!”

 

“Now, that’s not true, pet,” Bilbo said, “they’ve gone on, you know, to the Halls of Mandos. You’ll get to see them there when it’s your time.”

 

Pippin hiccuped and sniffed, then wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked at Bilbo with wide eyes. “Can we g–go see them?” he asked.

 

Bilbo shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid we can’t, Pip. You’ll see them when it’s your time, but for now, they’re waiting for you, watching over you, you know.”

 

Pippin sniffed loudly, and the other faunts began to stir. Bilbo sat down with Pippin upon the soft bed of straw and began to comb his fingers through Pippin’s hair, remembering how his mother would brush his curls when he was a lad and had woken up from a nightmare. Soon, Pippin fell asleep again, and Bilbo laid him down next to Sam, who half woke, then pulled Pippin’s little body into his arms. Bilbo patted Sam’s hair gratefully, then lay down where he was and sighed.

 

Twenty years ago, he’d lain in almost this exact spot, not far from –

 

Bilbo didn’t finish the thought. Rather, he shifted onto his side and watched as the fauntlings slept, until he too passed into dreams.

 

They stayed a day and another night, leaving just after dawn on the third day with new jars of honeycombs in their bags and skins of goat milk to drink. Beorn waved them off, then disappeared into his house as they got to such a distance that he looked even smaller than Bilbo. Bilbo turned back to face the road ahead of them, and sighed at the every growing treeline of Mirkwood in the distance. He had Frodo with him on Bill that morning, Sam had Merry and Aragorn had Pippin, and of the fauntlings, only Sam was awake, even Pippin curled into Aragorn’s jacket and slumbered.

 

By nightfall, they reached the edge of the trees and they made camp hardly a stone’s throw from it. Aragorn stood watching the trees for quite some time, only stirring when Bilbo offered him food. Bilbo tried not to look for the little hollow of ground he’d fallen asleep in twenty years previous, not wanting to see where he had watered the ground with his tears over his lost friends. His lost love.

 

Bilbo took the second watch as always, and when dawn came he roused the faunts and Aragorn, prepared their breakfast, and loaded up the ponies again. Aragorn had promised that the elves had managed to clear the path some since Bilbo had last walked it, that even his horse would be able to travel with some amount of comfort. As they neared the trees, the ponies tossed their manes and whinnied, but none resisted their reigns and moved onward to the trees.

 

Then an elf dropped out of one.

 

Bilbo gasped and half drew Sting, but the elf was not reaching for weapons or a bow, in fact, he was smiling at them. For a second, no one moved or spoke, and in that time, Bilbo recognized him.

 

“Legolas, son of Thranduil,” Aragorn said, a note in his voice made it clear that he was pleased to see the elf, they must be friends, Bilbo thought, “well met.”

 

“Well met, Aragorn, son of Arathorn,” said Legolas, touching a hand to his chest. “I see you have brought visitors.”

 

“Indeed I have. With me is –”

 

“Bilbo Baggins,” Bilbo interrupted.

 

Legolas’s smile faded a little, became a little sadder. “I remember you well, Master Baggins,” said the elf with a bow of his head. “What brings you to my father’s realm?”

 

“Is that the elf prince?”

 

Bilbo, Aragorn, and Legolas all looked at Frodo, who clearly hadn’t whispered as quietly as he thought he had. The fauntling flushed and covered his mouth with a hand.

 

“I see you have been productive in these past twenty years,” Legolas said with a light laugh. “Are congratulations in order?”

 

“No, no, they are not really my children,” Bilbo said. He was tiring of having to re-tell this story. “I have taken them in, but I am not their father.”

 

“Indeed?” Legolas said, tilting his head.

 

“They are orphans,” Bilbo said. “The Shire is in uproar, and I have nowhere else to take them but to Erebor.”

 

Legolas was no longer smiling. The elf looked with a new sadness at the fauntlings, then returned his gaze to Bilbo’s. “It just so happens that I too have business in Erebor. I shall see you safely through the forest and to the other side,” the elf said, then gave Bilbo a slight bow. “It is not quite as dark as it was when you were last here, Master Baggins.”

 

“Aragorn has said so,” Bilbo said, then he spurred his pony on. Legolas took up a pace between his pony and Aragorn’s horse, Sam and Merry’s pony just ahead of them, and they entered the great forest. Bilbo couldn’t help but suck in a breath as the shadow of the trees overtook him, but let it out when he saw thin waves of sunlight breaching the arms of the canopy.

 

“How are things in your realm, my friend?” Aragorn asked Legolas conversationally.

 

“Fairing well,” Legolas answered, “trade with the Kingdom of Esgaroth has risen and now we are even on good terms with the Dwarves of Erebor.”

 

Bilbo’s heart lurched at the mere mention. He looked to Legolas, his brow furrowed, and decided he would _not_ ask about how the Dwarves were faring, but how they got along so well. At his question, Legolas laughed.

 

“Nearly twenty years ago, a friend of mine began to court a dwarf,” the elf-prince said, “despite the fact that she was banished from our realm, the mere knowledge of a dwarf courting an elf began to ease tensions between our two kingdoms. Much has changed since you left, little burglar; even I have friends within the mountain.”

 

Bilbo did not like Legolas’s easy smile, nor was he sure he trusted the elf’s words. “Do you indeed?” he said quietly, turning away from Legolas. Perhaps he’d grown too similar to –

 

He would not think it. He had managed twenty years without him, he would not think the name now, not when he was so close.

 

“Did you really use the dwarves’ heads for stepping stones once, Prince Legolas?” Frodo asked.

 

Legolas laughed. “Aye, I did, and they haven’t let me forget it! Glóin still grumbles about it, especially.”

 

“Have you grown fond of Glóin?” Bilbo asked.

 

“As much as I can,” Legolas said, and his eyes were sparkling. “However, it is his son I have grown close to.”

 

Bilbo raised an eyebrow, remembering Glóin speaking of his wee Gimli back home, but Aragorn gave a laugh.

 

“Tell me you said something already,” Aragorn said.

 

“Aye, I have, and you should have seen the look on his face,” Legolas was fairly beaming now. “It’s been six months now.”

 

“And how much longer til it’s over?”

 

Legolas’s grin soured. “Glóin, as I said, grumbles to this day, and insisted on a year and a half.”

 

Aragorn let out another laugh and reached down to pat his friend on the shoulder. “You’ll survive,” he said.

 

“Beg pardon,” came Sam’s voice, and Bilbo looked up to see that the lad had turned almost all the way around in his saddle, “but what’s he going on about?”

 

“Legolas has become the second elf to court a dwarf,” Aragorn explained, grinning. “And he bemoans his future father-in-law’s dislike of him.”

 

Bilbo gaped. “You court Glóin’s son?”

 

“I do,” Legolas said, returning Bilbo’s astonished gaze with hard eyes. He brushed his hair from his face and selected a braid that hung at his temple, two braids, truly, with silver beads dangling at the end. “I have changed much since you last saw me, little burglar.”

 

Bilbo fell silent, and Legolas looked away, his fingers still touching the braids at his temple, as if he himself could hardly believe it. Bilbo could hardly believe it. He knew that Thorin would have a conniption if he knew –

 

Bilbo’s eyes squeezed shut for a brief moment, then he exhaled and opened them. He gave up.

 

Legolas announced when it was nighttime, despite there being no sunlight for over two hours until then, and they stopped to make camp on the path. Legolas and Aragorn offered to take the watches, and Bilbo let them, sleeping soundly through the night for the first time in quite a while.

 

After another day’s walk, they reached the far side of the forest. Legolas continued to walk beside them, bright and energetic as ever despite having no horse to carry him. When Bilbo asked, Legolas simply smiled at him before answering.

 

“It has been over a month since I last visited Erebor. I miss my dwarf.”

 

Bilbo almost recoiled at Legolas’s simple words, the simple phrase of _my dwarf_ . He remembered when it was _he_ who had smiled and said _my dwarf_ , even if it was just to himself.

 

Bilbo missed his dwarf, too.

 

Before Bilbo realized it, they were standing outside the massive gates of Erebor. Aragorn withdrew a horn and blew it, catching the attention of the guards on the battlements above. Bilbo remembered those battlements, he remembered standing with a fast-beating heart as he confessed his sin, he remembered Thorin’s eyes, mad with gold, filling with hurt, he remembered looking at the ground and feeling like he would choke long before Thorin’s fingers closed around his throat –

 

“Hail, Guard of Erebor!” Aragorn called. “I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and with me is Legolas of the Greenwood!”

 

“Shut yer trap, I can see the elf’s pasty face from up here!”

 

Bilbo frowned, looking to Legolas, who had said the dwarves were on better terms, but Legolas was merely smiling.

 

“And I can see you have neglected your hood again,” Legolas called, “for why else would your face be as red as a tomato, meleth nín?”

 

Meleth, one of the first words Bilbo had been taught. _Love_. Bilbo blinked, then looked back up at the battlements. Then, that dwarf was –

 

“And you can shut it too, thank ye kindly, ye fool elf!” Gimli, son of Glóin, shot back.

 

“I think you’ll have to come down and shut it for me,” Legolas answered, sounding much too pleased with himself.

 

“Gross!” Frodo whispered. Bilbo rather agreed.

 

“Shameless elf!” Gimli said with a laugh. “Now, I see a man and I see my One, but I see, too, what look like children! Legolas, have you adopted a bushel of babes without asking me first?”

 

“Nay, Gimli, son of Glóin,” Aragorn answered for Legolas, “these are Hobbits!”

 

“Hobbits?” Gimli repeated. “Hobbits!”

 

“I am Bilbo Baggins of the Shire,” Bilbo shouted up at the battlements, and even from the ground, he could see Gimli’s jaw drop open. “I come seeking asylum.”

 

“Not Master Bilbo Baggins, burglar to Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain?” Gimli demanded.

 

“The very same,” Bilbo said. He could not respond to his name, he could not lose his composure. He thought very suddenly that perhaps Beorn had been right, that perhaps he had not found closure in the Shire, for all the reminders around him merely made his heart twice as heavy again.

 

“And are those wee Hobbits you’ve got with you?” Gimli asked.

 

“Indeed,” Bilbo said. “Again, I have come seeking asylum.”

 

“And I’m sure it’ll be given, for a hero of your status!” the dwarf answered. “Open the gates!”

 

The last call was a shout not to them, but to someone below him, and it was followed hastily by the groaning of the massive stone doors; Bill knickered and tossed his head and stamped his feet in protest, as did the other ponies and Aragorn’s horse. The gates came open with a thundering crash, and Bilbo held tightly to Bill’s reigns for a second, frozen in his place. Then Legolas strode forward and towards the open gate, and Bilbo shook himself and followed the elf in.

 

They were met by a red-headed dwarf, dressed in green armor bearing a white raven, who stamped his foot and axe into the ground as they neared, then held out his arms. Legolas embraced the dwarf, and Bilbo looked away while they shared a quick kiss.

 

“Welcome to Erebor, Bilbo Baggins!” Gimli said, bowing to him. Bilbo slid from Bill’s back, then reached out and offered a hand to Gimli.

 

“Thank you, son of Glóin,” Bilbo said, and Gimli grasped his forearm and shook it firmly.

 

“My father never mentioned you were a family man,” Gimli said, looking at the faunts with a broad smile. “Are they all yours?”

 

“None of them, actually,” Bilbo said, sighing, and he helped Frodo down from Bill. “Where might we stable these ponies? And Aragorn’s horse?”

 

“Just through here,” Gimli said, holding up an arm. Bilbo helped Sam down, then Merry, then went to take Pippin from Aragorn, but the youngest faunt stayed clinging to Aragorn’s leathers, and he let the man keep him. Gimli led them away, into a stable where he spoke with another dwarf, then several more came forward and took their ponies and the single horse. Bilbo saw how they stared at him, as if he were some legend come to life.

 

“Now, if you’ll follow me, I expect the King will be wanting to see you,” Gimli said. Bilbo only nodded, unable to bring himself to ask who had taken the throne in light of the deaths of Thorin and his heirs. He felt something tug at his trousers and looked down. Merry held up his arms, and he bent and lifted the faunt up, who curled close to him, burying his face in Bilbo’s neck.

 

“You said they weren’t yours?” Gimli asked.

 

“No,” Bilbo said. “I have taken them in, but I am not their father.”

 

“A noble cause,” Gimli said, nodding, then he softened at the sight of Merry. “They look so young.”

 

“They are so young,” Bilbo answered. “Sam’s barely seventeen, and he’s the oldest.” At Gimli’s sudden wide eyes, he added: “I imagine that seventeen would be close to thirty for a dwarf, however, Hobbits reach maturity at thirty-three rather than seventy, as dwarves do.”

 

“Oh, aye, I remember my father saying as much now,” Gimli said. “Still…”

 

He looked at Merry, then asked in a hushed tone: “Where are their parents?”

 

“Gone,” Bilbo answered just as quietly. “But I have explained this many times over the past few months, and I would rather have to explain it only once more.”

 

“Aye, of course, through here.”

 

They made a left, and reached a grand door flanked by two more dwarves.

 

“Afternoon, Gimli,” said one.

 

“What’s your business in the Royal Apartments?” asked the other.

 

“This here is Bilbo Baggins,” Gimli said, pointing a thumb at him. “He’s asking for asylum.”

 

Both dwarves went wide-eyed and stared at Bilbo for a second, then they both saluted and pushed open the door, bowing them in. Gimli nodded to them, before leading them inside.

 

“You may wait here,” Gimli said, as they turned a corner and entered what looked like a sitting room. Frodo immediately scrambled for the fire and dropped down to his knees to stick his hands out to warm them. Gimli smiled at the faunt for a moment, then disappeared behind more doors.

 

Bilbo looked around the room, seeing signs of a happy family even where none of its members were present. There was a chessboard in the back with pieces knocked over. A basket sat by a sofa filled with skeins of yarn and what looked like the beginnings of a baby’s afghan lay over the arm of the sofa. There was an armchair with a blanket not dissimilar to the one laying on the sofa draped over its back, only larger, just enough for a fully grown dwarf.

 

Bilbo heard a door behind him open and turned around.

 

“Bilbo!” exclaimed Fíli.

 

Bilbo almost dropped Merry. “Fíli!” he gasped.

 

“You’re here!” shouted Kíli behind him.

 

“Kíli!” Bilbo breathed. Merry made a noise and he tightened his grip.

 

The two brothers stopped in front of him, staring at the little faunt in his arms with slack jaws. Bilbo stared back at them, wondering if somehow he was dreaming.

 

“You have a tiny Hobbit,” Fíli said, sounding astonished.

 

“Why do you have a tiny Hobbit?” Kíli asked, his voice suspicious.

 

“Did you get married?” asked Fíli, now sounding worried.

 

“This is not good,” Kíli muttered, with twice the worry as Fíli.

 

“Uncle, why are they staring at you?” Frodo asked, his voice confused.

 

Fíli and Kíli swiveled their stares to Frodo. “You have another tiny Hobbit!” Kíli gasped.

 

“Three more!” Fíli added, seeing Pippin curled in Aragorn’s arms and Sam hiding behind the man’s legs. “This is not good.”

 

Bilbo set Merry down carefully, then took a hesitant step towards the pair of brothers. He reached out and touched Fíli’s shoulder as if his hand might pass right through him, then Kíli’s face. Kíli finally had a beard!

 

“I thought you were dead,” he said carefully.

 

Fíli and Kíli paled. “This is most definitely not good,” Kíli said.

 

“This is worse than the tiny Hobbits,” Fíli added in a mutter.

 

“I thought you were dead!” Bilbo shouted, then drew both of them into a hug and half sobbed into one of their shoulders. “You’re alive!”

 

“Well, yes, we are, but we won’t be much longer if you choke us!” Fíli gasped. Bilbo let go of them, but continued to stare. Then he scowled.

 

“I thought you were dead!” he snapped. “How come you’re alive?”

 

“We very nearly were,” Kíli said, suddenly sober. “It was by the grace of Lord Elrond that we lived.”

 

Bilbo blinked. _“Perhaps you will find the Lonely Mountain a little less cold to you than you thought.”_

 

“That blasted elf didn’t tell me that!” Bilbo said.

 

“Well, we didn’t think you thought us dead!” Fíli told him. “Maybe he thought you knew!”

 

“But I – Wait, hang on, why is it bad that I have tiny Hobbits?”

 

Fíli and Kíli glanced at each other. “Well, you see,” Kíli said, rubbing at the back of his neck, “when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much –”

 

“I know that, fool, I mean, why is it bad that I have them with me?” Bilbo demanded.

 

The door opened again. Fíli and Kíli turned, and Bilbo’s heart dropped from his chest all the way down to his gut and fell out through his arse. Thorin Oakenshield took a hesitant step into the room, and Bilbo gulped. Thorin’s eyes, vast and bluer than Bilbo could have ever remembered, stared back into his, unblinking, unmoving, his face pale and his mouth hanging open as if in shock, as if _Bilbo_ were the one to appear after twenty years being dead.

 

“Uncle,” Fíli said, breaking their reverie. “Bilbo’s brought his tiny Hobbits.”

 

Thorin looked away from Bilbo and saw Frodo holding onto his leg, then Merry on his other side, and Pippin and Sam, and the dwarf exhaled slowly.

 

“Did you think he was dead, too?” Kíli muttered to Bilbo. Bilbo nodded. “Bugger,” Kíli hissed.

 

“I have been told that you came seeking asylum,” Thorin said. Bilbo had forgotten how deep his voice was, how warm, how it made his insides feel like jelly.

 

“I have,” Bilbo said, his voice was quiet and he cleared his throat. “Yes. Asylum. With these four young Hobbits.”

 

Thorin frowned at him, a pained frown. There was gray added to his beard, and his beard had been left to grow. “And you did not bring… their mother?”

 

_Oh! He thinks – Oh!_

 

“I am not their father,” Bilbo said quickly. “Their parents were killed.”

 

“Killed?” Fíli repeated.

 

Pippin started crying again. Merry buried his face in Bilbo’s knee and Bilbo could only look as Aragorn tried to comfort the young faunt, who just cried into the man’s chest.

 

“Killed,” Bilbo said, not looking away from Pippin. “In a riot. Well, Frodo’s parents drowned five years ago, but Pippin and Merry – the both of them lost their parents to attackers. And Sam – Sam’s parents were killed protecting Frodo, Sam, and Pippin.” He looked back at Thorin, who was still looking at him and started talking quickly, quietly. “Pippin saw whoever it was, that’s why we had to flee. They came looking to take Pippin, or worse, I don’t know, and Sam’s parents died protecting them. That’s why we need asylum.”

 

“These scoundrels came looking to attack _children_?” Fíli asked, his voice full of disgust, and Kíli spat something in Khuzdul.

 

“Asylum is granted,” said Thorin. He paused, then licked his lips and looked away. Bilbo felt his heart lurch back into his chest from wherever it had gone. “You may stay here, in my family’s apartments.”

 

Bilbo didn’t question it. He reached out, hesitated, then took Thorin’s hand. Thorin looked at their hands, his eyes large and his eyebrows high, then up into Bilbo’s face.

 

“Thank you,” Bilbo said, his voice almost raspy. “Thank you, so, _so_ much.”

 

Thorin said nothing, and for a moment, did nothing, then he nodded, and turned away. He vanished through the same door he’d come through, and Bilbo was left staring after him, feeling very lost all of a sudden.

 

“That went well,” Fíli said.

 

“I could have sworn you were going to hit him,” Kíli added.

 

Bilbo looked away, and his gaze fell on the baby blanket, half-knitted on the arm of the sofa. He swallowed thickly.

 

“I see congratulations are indeed in order for someone,” he said. _Please don’t let it be Thorin, please don’t let it be Thorin –_

 

“Aye, me,” Kíli said, puffing up his chest. “Tauriel is three months along now, our first.”

 

Bilbo half nodded, then froze. “Wait, Tauriel? Isn’t that the elf who healed you?”

 

Kíli nodded, grinning. “We’ve been married for ten years now.”

 

Bilbo blinked at him, then looked at Legolas, then back at Kíli, then at the door, and he felt very much like hitting something _then_. “But Thorin – He hates elves! No offense,” he added to Legolas, who shrugged.

 

“He used to hate elves,” Kíli said. “Then Lord Elrond brought him back from the brink of death, and me and Fíli, too, and he was forced to admit that some of them weren’t so bad.”

 

“Then Kíli went and announced he’d found his One in an elf,” Fíli added. “That certainly helped things along.”

 

“Tauriel,” Bilbo repeated in a murmur.

 

“I told you,” Legolas said softly, “the mountain has changed since you left it.”

 

Bilbo nodded, and for the first time in twenty years, he began to regret how quickly he had left it.

 

“I’m hungry, Uncle Bilbo.”

 

Bilbo looked down at Frodo, who continued to tug on his trouser leg.

 

“Hungry you should be!” Fíli declared, then he swooped in and lifted Frodo into his arms. “And we’ve got a Dwarven feast waiting for you!”

 

Kíli bent and lifted Merry, who giggled when his beard brushed his cheek. “At least, we will once we tell Bombur and Barur that you lot are here. Bombur and his son, Barur, have taken over the Royal Kitchens, so you know, Bilbo.”

 

“Has Gimli gone back to his post?” Legolas asked the two brothers as they made their way out.

 

“Probably,” Fíli said. Kíli grinned at the elf prince.

 

“Glóin doesn’t have a clue that you’re here,” he said, then Fíli grinned as well.

 

“And Gimli does go off duty soon,” the blonde brother added.

 

“I would take advantage of that while you can.”

 

“That I shall!” Legolas said, laughing. “Thank you, Your Highnesses!”

 

With that, the elf darted away. Kíli nodded in approval after Legolas.

 

“Gimli’s definitely got his hands full with that one,” he said.

 

“More like Legolas has got his hands full with Gimli,” Fíli sniggered. Frodo glanced between them, then scowled in an excellent imitation of Bilbo and promptly bopped Fíli on the nose. “Ow! Fearsome tiny Hobbit you’ve got here, Bilbo.”

 

“My name is Frodo!”

 

“Fearsome tiny Frodo, then!” Fíli laughed.

 

“What’s your name then?” Kíli asked the fauntling in his arms.

 

“Merry Brandybuck!” the little one said proudly. “Though the big man with the honeycakes kept calling me tiny Baggins.”

 

“And tiny you are!” Kíli said. “Which are the other two?”

 

“Aragorn’s got Pippin,” Bilbo answered, “and this is Sam hiding behind me.”

 

Sam peered out from behind his knees and waved shyly.

 

“It’s a pleasure to make all of your acquaintances,” Kíli said, bowing a little to Sam. “I am Kíli and this is Fíli, at your service!”

 

“Did you two go on the adventure with Bilbo?” Merry asked.

 

“We did!” Fíli said. “Although, I now like to think of it as the Thirteen Months Spent Watching Uncle Thorin Sigh.”

 

“And why’s that?” Bilbo asked, a little too snappishly. Fíli blinked at him, before answering him quite calmly.

 

“I think you ought to know already.”

 

Bilbo flushed. Frodo glanced between them and bopped Fíli on the nose again. “Ow!” the dwarf said.

 

Bilbo’s gaze drifted away and he found himself moving thoughtlessly, his feet carrying him on but his heart, his mind…

 

Thorin was alive. Twenty years he had spent _mourning_ , and Thorin Oakenshield was alive.

 

“... in through here, you’ll find all sorts of goodies to eat, and sometimes you don’t even have to sneak them!”

 

Amongst the giggles of the enamored fauntlings, Bilbo found someplace to sit and pulled out his pipe, but though he filled it and raised it to his lips, he forgot to light it.

 

A pair of boots entered his vision. Bilbo looked up, lifting the pipe from his mouth, and Kíli smiled at him kindly, then offered a light. Bilbo glanced at his pipe, flushed, and let Kíli light his pipe. Then Kíli sat down next to him as Bilbo puffed for a moment.

 

“We didn’t realize you still thought us dead,” Kíli said quietly.

 

Bilbo said nothing.

 

“Had we known, I’m sure Uncle would have sent someone after you. Or gone himself, I don’t know.”

 

Bilbo continued to puff.

 

“What we did think,” Kíli murmured, “was that you couldn’t bear to stay here with all the bad memories.”

 

Bilbo shut his eyes, and exhaled heavily.

 

“What Uncle thought…”

 

Bilbo looked at him. Kíli was not smiling. “Was that you could no longer bear to be around _him_.”

 

Bilbo lowered his pipe with shaking hands, then leaned into Kíli’s shoulder and hugged him, trying his damndest not to cry. Kíli hugged him back tightly, and they sat there, while Bilbo processed the fact that none of the company had really died after all, that Thorin was alive and well, and had spent twenty years thinking that Bilbo had hated him.

 

“Uncle, Uncle Bilbo, they’ve got freshly baked cookies!”

 

Bilbo forced himself to get up, to compose himself, then he smiled at Frodo and let the faunt lead him further into the kitchen, where a familiar fat dwarf was handing out biscuits.

 

“Bombur!” Bilbo greeted, and the fat dwarf looked up with a jolly grin.

 

“Bilbo!” Bombur cried, and he flung his arms around Bilbo and lifted him off his feet into a bone-crushing hug. “My old friend, it has been too long!”

 

“My apologies,” Bilbo choked. Bombur set him down, and he breathed heavily for a second. “In all honesty, I left because I thought Kíli, Fíli, and Thorin to be dead.”

 

“Well, you shouldn’t have left so quick, then,” Bombur said, but there was no anger in his tone. Bilbo still felt the guilt and looked away, until Bombur clapped him on the shoulder and pressed a biscuit into his hands.

 

“Your nephews are a delight,” Bombur said.

 

“Thank you,” Bilbo mumbled, then nibbled on the biscuit. He raised his eyebrows and grinned at his old friend. “These are magnificent!”

 

“I will give you the recipe!” Bombur promised. Bilbo grinned wider. Thorin was alive, his fauntlings were safe, and Bombur would share the recipe for the delicious biscuits.

 

And for the moment, that was enough.

 

Bombur chased them out of the kitchens eventually, claiming he needed to work to prepare the evening meal – _“It will be a feast, I tell you, a feast!”_ – and Kíli and Fíli led them back to the Royal Apartments, or rather, they led Bilbo and Aragorn; at that point, Frodo and Sam were riding on Fíli and Kíli’s backs, Merry had gone back to Bilbo, and Pippin had yet to leave Aragorn’s arms. Fíli and Kíli decided to race each other, even with Bilbo fretting behind them about being careful with them, they’re only children! The two brothers skidded to a halt in the sitting room, and Bilbo nearly ran into them.

 

“Oh, hello, ‘amad!” Fíli said.

 

Bilbo looked around, then started. There was a new dwarf sat on the sofa, with knitting needles in hand, who looked very much like Thorin, except for the fact that she was clearly a Dwarrowdam and her eyes were brown instead of blue.

 

“I see you have found yourselves new playmates,” said the Dwarrowdam, Thorin’s sister, Dís. She rose from the couch, her face impassive, then locked eyes with Bilbo. Bilbo gulped. “My brother has told me much about you,” she said quietly.

 

Fíli and Kíli exchanged glances, then let Frodo and Sam down.

 

“I must admit,” Bilbo said hesitantly, “that I did not expect to see him or your sons when I came to the mountain.”

 

Dís raised an eyebrow. “You thought them dead?”

 

Bilbo nodded. Dís’s other eyebrow rose. “For twenty years,” she said softly, “I have had to endure Thorin’s sighing, because you thought him dead.”

 

Bilbo flushed. Dís turned around, and then stopped, finding the path to her sons blocked by Frodo and Sam. She looked down at them, her eyebrows still high on her forehead.

 

“You have a beard,” Sam said. “But you’re a mummy.”

 

Dís blinked. “Aye, indeed. All dwarves grow beards, young Master Hobbit.”

 

“Really?” Frodo gasped.

 

“Aye,” Dís said again, then she knelt down before them and smiled. “You two look like you could use a good bath.”

 

“I haven’t had a proper bath since we left Rivendell!” Frodo cried.

 

Dís looked up at Bilbo. “You know,” she said, her voice full of admiration, “it’s a welcome change to see bairns who look _forward_ to bath time, instead of dreading it.”

 

Bilbo half laughed. Kíli and Fíli had the decency to look ashamed.

 

Dís showed them to the rooms they would be staying in, living in, Bilbo corrected himself. She pointed out which were hers and which were Fíli’s and which were Kíli and Tauriel’s, and Bilbo did notice that she neglected to mention the last door, right next to Bilbo’s, which had to be Thorin’s. Upon seeing that their new apartment had three bedrooms, Bilbo immediately offered one to Aragorn, but the Ranger shook his head and smiled, saying that he would be leaving by nightfall.

 

“But surely you’d wish to stay and rest,” Bilbo asked.

 

“I have business to attend to, west of here,” Aragorn said. “I thank you for your kindness, but the sooner I set out, the better.”

 

Bilbo nodded. “I thank you for your care and protection of us,” he said, then glanced at where Pippin was chasing Fíli around the room. “The little ones will miss you.”

 

“I will visit, then,” Aragorn decided. “Perhaps I can convince Thranduil that I am a good chaperone for his son when he comes to visit Gimli.”

 

Bilbo smiled, then paused. “Does Thranduil even know that Legolas is here?”

 

Aragorn shrugged. “It’s possible that Legolas said he was coming here, but, honestly, I doubt it. By now, I expect he’ll have figured it out and drained half the wine cellars.”

 

Bilbo gave a snort, thinking of the elegant and composed Elvenking drunk and grumbling to himself about fool dwarves and idiot children who couldn’t control themselves for one minute. The elegant and composed Elvenking quickly became a Dwarven King, and he lost the smile.

 

Aragorn glanced at him, then at the fauntlings playing with Kíli and Fíli, then back at him and he gave Bilbo a look of sympathy.

 

“I see now,” Aragorn said quietly. “I see what Beorn meant.”

 

Bilbo was frozen for a second, then he shook his head. “No,” he whispered, “not quite.”

 

He’d have to talk to Thorin. Even if the dwarf had succeeded in avoiding him since he had granted them asylum, Bilbo would have to talk to him, and it wouldn’t be pretty. There would be shouting, and probably a few tears on his part. Bilbo sighed, already dreading it.

 

Aragorn touched a hand to his shoulder. “My friend, for all my wanderings, I find that I am often lost, but this time is not one of them. I would have to be blind to not see.”

 

Bilbo averted his gaze and Aragorn removed his hand, the man’s face showing pity, and for a moment Bilbo was angry with him, but found that it faded just as quickly.

 

“I suppose so,” he murmured. Aragorn gave him one last smile of comfort, then turned away and headed for the door. He stopped only when Pippin ran forward and collided with his leg in a fierce hug. After a moment, all the fauntlings ran up to him and joined Pippin in hugging his legs. Aragorn looked back to Bilbo, who only smiled and shrugged, and Aragorn knelt down to say his goodbyes to the little ones. After that, he was gone.

 

“All your wanderings, indeed,” Bilbo murmured. “I should turn that into a poem.”

 

Dís came into his view and he looked up at her, then tried his best to smile. The Dwarrowdam nodded her head to him and stood next to him, watching as Fíli and Kíli tried to coax the now saddened faunts back into playing.

 

“They’ve lost a lot,” Dís said softly. “Far too quickly.”

 

“Yes,” Bilbo murmured. “Far, far too quickly.”

 

Dís looked at him again, her eyes steely. “And they deserve not to lose their last parent to pinning,” she said.

 

Bilbo started. “I beg your pardon?”

 

“You may beg nothing,” Dís said, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “I have spent twenty long years watching my brother grow older, Bilbo Baggins, but now that you have come back to him…”

 

She did not finish. Bilbo looked away, feeling as lost as he had before, as he had implied Aragorn was. Dís’s mouth set into a frown, then she grabbed Bilbo’s hand and tucked it about her elbow, and fairly dragged him away from where he stood despite his spluttering protestations.

 

“Children, if you would not mind, I must borrow your uncle for a while,” Dís said to the faunts, “Fíli and Kíli will watch you, it’ll be good practice for when Kíli’s little one arrives.”

 

“Where’s your little one coming from?” Bilbo heard Merry ask. Dís opened the door that Thorin had disappeared through earlier and shut it again behind them before Bilbo could hear Kíli’s, hopefully untruthful, answer.

 

“Where are you taking me?” Bilbo demanded.

 

“To see the King,” Dís said stiffly.

 

“But I –”

 

“Master Baggins, I think you’ll find that when it comes to stubbornness, I outmatch Thorin.”

 

Bilbo gulped. Dís dragged him around a corner, then stopped at a door at nearly the other end of the corridor. She raised a hand and gave a sharp knock. “Wait here,” she said with a hiss, and ducked inside. Bilbo glanced around, wondering if it would be safer for him to run away as fast as possible, when Dís opened the door fully. She raised her eyebrows at him, then curled a beckoning finger. Bilbo gulped again.

 

The room was an office, clearly, but the room was empty. There was a second door leading back towards the Royal Apartments. Bilbo heard a click and turned, but Dís was bustling past him and disappearing through the second door. Bilbo glanced at the door, then back at the way he’d come, and tried the handle.

 

She had locked the door. Bilbo scowled, looking around for a key, when the second door opened again.

 

“–… I don’t see why you’ve got to meddle like this, namad, I’m perfectly capable of –”

 

Bilbo gulped for a third time. Thorin stared at him, blank-faced, and Dís gave a satisfied smile, then shut the door she’d just opened. Bilbo heard another _click_ , and assumed that she’d locked that door as well. Thorin took a step forward, then stopped, and took half a step back, clenching a fist.

 

“I fear my sister has decided to meddle,” he said.

 

“That’s obvious,” Bilbo snapped.

 

Thorin wouldn’t look away from him. Bilbo felt his cheeks getting warmer, and it wasn’t the temperature of the room. He glanced around, trying to think of something to say, and only ended up looking back at Thorin, which was a mistake.

 

Thorin re-took the step, but hesitantly. Bilbo could have gotten lost in how _blue_ his eyes were. He swallowed, then mirrored Thorin’s step.

 

“You should know,” Bilbo said quietly, “that until this afternoon, I thought you were dead.”

 

Thorin stopped. He blinked. His eyebrows knit together and his mouth shut with a snap. “Dead?” he repeated. “I’m not dead.”

 

“Again, that’s obvious,” Bilbo said. “Fíli and Kíli, they told me Elrond saved you.”

 

“Aye.”

 

Bilbo found his feet taking another step in. Thorin echoed his movement.

 

“It wasn’t because – because I didn’t forgive you,” Bilbo said. “I forgive you, I forgave you, a long time ago.”

 

Thorin swallowed, then: “Aye,” he said thickly.

 

Bilbo took a step. Thorin copied it. “Do you…”

 

“Do I what?”

 

“Do you remember what you said to me? As you were… Not dying?”

 

Thorin hesitated, then he slowly nodded. “I remember.”

 

Bilbo inhaled deeply, then, forcing himself not to move his gaze away from Thorin’s. “Do you remember what I said?”

 

“Aye,” Thorin whispered.

 

Bilbo lost the words. He swallowed and nodded, having no clue what to say next. Thorin took a step towards him, and Bilbo followed. They were in arms reach of each other. Bilbo could hit Thorin, and part of him wanted to, just for showing up after twenty years of being dead, but his arms felt like lead at his side.

 

“Did you mean it?” Thorin asked in a quiet rumble.

 

“I meant it,” Bilbo said.

 

Thorin reached out, hesitated, then took Bilbo’s hand. Bilbo hissed in a breath and pressed his other hand to his mouth, his eyes stinging with tears again at the warm, solid, _alive_ hand holding his. Thorin gave him a little tug and Bilbo went, then Thorn reached up and brushed at Bilbo’s cheek with a hand.

 

“I spent twenty years mourning,” Bilbo choked. “Twenty _years_ , Thorin.”

 

“I spent twenty years missing you,” Thorin whispered.

 

“You were _dead!_ ”

 

“I might as well been,” Thorin said, “for you took all the heart in me with you when you left.”

 

Bilbo crumbled; he fell against Thorin’s chest and sobbed, his fists curled in his tunic and he breathed in the scent of fire and spices and most importantly, pressed his ear to Thorin’s chest to hear the heart beating inside, the proof that Thorin was alive. Thorin’s arms closed around him and a hand landed in his hair, his dwarf whispering things to him, half of them Khuzdul that Bilbo couldn’t even understand, but Thorin was _alive_.

 

When rough fingers slipped beneath his chin and tilted his face up, Bilbo shut his eyes. Thorin’s lips were warm and soft.

 

Dís unlocked the door, eventually, but it did not matter, as Bilbo and Thorin were quite content to remain where they were – that is to say, in Thorin’s desk chair – until Bilbo’s stomach began to grumble and growl. Thorin pulled back from Bilbo, who quite thoroughly pouted, and lifted the Hobbit from his lap.

 

“Your charges will be wondering where you are,” Thorin prompted him.

 

“Bugger,” Bilbo muttered. He had a point.

 

His stomach grumbled again. The both of them looked down at it; Bilbo flushed.

 

“And I believe it is supper time,” Thorin said, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Fine,” Bilbo sighed, “but this is not over.”

 

A corner of Thorin’s mouth twitched. “I am perfectly happy with that arrangement, kurdulu.”

 

Bilbo opened his mouth, then shut it and sucked in a breath. “You’ve called me that before.”

 

Thorin nodded.

 

“What does it mean?”

 

“My heart,” Thorin said softly.

 

Bilbo set a hand at his cheek, then let his fingers slip into the beard that had grown long in twenty years. Thorin’s eyes fell shut, then he opened them again and looked up at Bilbo with an intensity he had never seen before. It almost frightened Bilbo, if it didn’t excite him so much.

 

“I would like to court you,” Thorin said quietly.

 

Bilbo was taken aback. “Court me?” he repeated.

 

“Aye. In Dwarvish custom, when we find our One we enter a period of courtship where we exchange gifts before marriage.”

 

“Are you asking me to marry you?” Bilbo asked quietly.

 

“Aye,” Thorin murmured.

 

Bilbo leaned his head against Thorin’s chest, the beard tickling his forehead, and tried to think. For twenty long years, he had only let himself dream of such things while horribly drunk, and as he was faced with it now, it was unexpected, but not entirely unwanted.

 

“I’d like that,” Bilbo whispered. Thorin kissed his hair, then reached into a drawer of his desk and withdrew from it a small wooden box.

 

“Bilbo Baggins of the Shire,” Thorin said, then opened the box, “I would offer you my courtship.”

 

Bilbo blinked. Then he leaned in and peered into the box. There was a set of brass buttons, all with acorns embossed into their surfaces.

 

“You already had a gift?” Bilbo asked. He could hardly believe it.

 

“I knew that if you ever returned, I would not want to wait long,” Thorin said. “And I knew that if you never returned, I would never need to make courtship gifts for anyone.”

 

Bilbo kissed him again, pressing his lips to his forehead and then the ridge of his nose and his cheekbone before finally his lips. He leaned his forehead against Thorin’s and let his eyes fall shut.

 

“I accept your gift,” he said. “And your courtship. Whatever it is I’m meant to say, yes, yes.”

 

Thorin smiled and kissed him back, and Bilbo was about to climb into his lap again when someone knocked on the door.

 

“Thorin, I’ve just heard –”

 

Thorin and Bilbo looked at the now open door. Balin gaped at them. Bilbo glanced at Thorin, who looked like he’d just been snogged for a full hour – which was rather true, actually – then at Balin, who looked like he’d just walked in on the King being snogged – again, true.

 

“What have you heard?” Thorin asked after a minute.

 

“That Bilbo returned,” Balin said. Then he cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

 

And he shut the door. Bilbo looked back at Thorin, who shrugged and pulled him back into another kiss.

 

“Okay, you’ve had enough time, have you killed each other or –”

 

“Dís!” Thorin growled as Bilbo squeaked. Dís blinked, then smiled.

 

“Yes, brother dear?”

 

“Do you mind?” Thorin asked her through gritted teeth.

 

“Not at all,” Dís said brightly. “Now, your tiny Hobbits are quite hungry but the oldest one, Sam, keeps saying that they have to wait for Mr. Bilbo before they can sup, so do you mind?”

 

Bilbo’s stomach grumbled unhelpfully. Dís, Thorin, and Bilbo blinked down at it.

 

“Fine,” Thorin grumbled, much like Bilbo’s stomach or perhaps a surly teenager, and rose from his chair. Bilbo glanced at his set of buttons, then put the lid back on the box and hugged it to his stomach. Thorin raised an eyebrow at him, then bowed slightly, gesturing for him to go ahead of him. Bilbo gave a stiff nod, as if he had not just been caught climbing into the King’s lap by his sister, and followed Dís from the office and through what was very plainly Thorin’s private rooms. Dís got ahead of them, disappearing through a door, and suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. Bilbo stopped, as Thorin pressed his nose to Bilbo’s neck and nuzzled gently.

 

“Would your tiny Hobbits be upset if you did not share a room with them?” he asked quietly.

 

Bilbo’s heart skidded in his chest. “Ah, well, maybe if I was just within earshot, so if one of them had a bad dream, I could hear them.”

 

“Then I will have to join you, rather than you join me.”

 

Bilbo shivered. “I am perfectly happy with that arrangement,” he said. Thorin chuckled, a low note that sent vibrations down his spine, and then lips pressed to the crest of his ear and Bilbo let out a perfectly indecent squeak.

 

“Very good, kurdulu,” Thorin murmured, his mouth still pressed to Bilbo’s ear, “very good.”

 

Dís stuck her head back in the room. “Are you coming or not?” she demanded.

 

“Yes, yes, coming,” Bilbo said, hastily pulling from Thorin’s grip. “Of course.”

 

Thorin took hold of his hand, and Bilbo would have been amiss if he dared let go.

**Author's Note:**

>  _-Khuzdul:_  
>  'amad: mother  
>  _namad:_ sister  
>  _kurdulu:_ my heart
> 
>  
> 
> _follow me on[tumblr](https://moonythejedi394.tumblr.com/)_


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